June 21, 2025

New York/Florida Comparison: The Contrast Becomes Ever More Dramatic

June 21, 2025/ Francis Menton

Among the larger states, the two that are closest to each other in population and demographics are New York and Florida.
According to the latest U.S. Census data (from July 1, 2024), the population of New York was 19,867,248, while the population of Florida was 23,372,215. More recent estimates from a source called World Population Review put New York’s 2025 population at 19,997,100 (an increase of about 130,000 on the year), and Florida’s at 23,839,600 (an increase of about 467,000 over the same year).
Yet in terms of the approach to state government — taxing, spending, and government programs overall — there could not be a greater contrast than between these two states. And that contrast only grows stronger every year.

December 23, 2023

The Progressive Approach To Homelessness Comes To Madison, Wisconsin

December 23, 2023/ Francis Menton

“Homelessness” is one of my favorite topics because it provides an endless supply of examples of clear, dramatic, and immediate failure of the government programs supposedly intended to assist the poor and vulnerable.
All of the big progressive cities follow some version of the same policies, which in summary amount to spending more and more money to provide “housing first” as the obvious solution to homelessness. All of these cities have rapidly stepped up spending over the past decade on promises to the voters to solve the homelessness problem with more subsidized housing; and all of them have then seen homelessness rise relentlessly along with the spending.
It’s almost impossible to believe that nobody can learn from this experience.
For today I’ll provide the latest update from Los Angeles, as well as look at how a very similar approach has worked out in the smaller (but equally progressive) city of Madison, Wisconsin.

September 02, 2023

September 02, 2023/ Francis Menton

Perhaps it is a little early for another update here on the “homelessness” situation in San Francisco. (My last update was about six months ago in March 2023.).
But there is a good reason for an update now: At least a few people seem finally to be catching on that the basic idea behind “homelessness” advocacy is to exploit an issue that brings forth great human empathy to generate vast taxpayer funds and then to not solve the problem. The spending continues and increases without limit.
There is way too much money — for advocates — in “homelessness” for the problem ever to get solved, or even to decrease materially.

May 08, 2023

May 08, 2023/ Francis Menton

In a post back on March 23 (“Trying To Head Off New York’s Total Self-Destruction”), I took note of the recent issuance by a think tank called the Empire Center of a big Report titled “Next New York.”
The Report shines a spotlight on one area after another where progressive New York politicians have implemented destructive and crazily-expensive policies. My March 23 post discussed the subject of energy policy. Before too much time has passed, I want to delve into at least one or two more areas. For today, it’s public education.
The Next New York Report covers public education in a 15-page segment (pages 29-43) written by Ray Domanico.
The simple and undeniable fact is that New York, both State and City, spend ridiculously more on K-12 education than any place else in the country.

March 09, 2023

March 09, 2023/ Francis Menton

A recurring theme here is the utter failure of progressive government social service spending programs to ever make a dent in, let alone solve, the problems they have been created to address.
Whatever the problems may be — poverty, food insecurity, housing, etc., etc. — once massive government spending programs to “solve” them are put in place, the problems never show significant improvement, and more often than not get worse, at least according to official measures, the longer the programs continue and the more is spent.
An extreme case of this phenomenon is the problem of “homelessness” in California.

February 14, 2023

February 14, 2023/ Francis Menton

It is gratifying to see a few other commentators starting to notice the dramatic contrasts between New York and Florida in government spending and policy outcomes.
You may already be aware of the truly incredible difference in state government spending between New York and Florida.
But what you may not be aware of is the shocking lack of measurable benefit that New Yorkers get for all their extra spending.